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Covenant Empire
The Covenant, also known as the Covenant Empire, are a religious alien empire who are the main antagonists of the Halo series. This theocratic military alliance of multiple alien races is obsessed with activating the titular "Halo" space stations, believing that they will send them on a "Great Journey" into godhood, when in reality they were intended to be a last-resort defense against The Flood and would destroy all life in the galaxy if successfully used. They worship the ancient "Forerunner" race, which created the Halos, but are oblivious to the true purposes of their creations even when Forerunner robots such as 343 Guilty Spark are still around who would gladly inform them. They are at war with humanity because humans are actually the descendants of the Forerunners, and since the Covenant religion states that all the Forerunners went on the Great Journey and ascended to a higher plane of existence, this means that their prophecy is wrong and the leaders of the Covenant want to exterminate humanity so the other Covenant won't find out about this and cause the organization to fall apart. One major practice of the Covenant is the orbital bombardment of enemy planets by their larger spaceships, known as "Glassing", which has an effect similar to a nuclear holocaust. This most notably happened to the planet Reach, which fell shortly before the first Halo game and was shown in the prequel game Halo: Reach. The Covenant is comprised of at least eight different alien races: * Elites/Sangheili: The most skilled warriors of the Covenant, the Elites themselves are grey humanoid creatures with strange squid-like mouths, but they wear a variety of elaborate armor that always covers their bodies. They have a highly sophisticated culture and ranking system, and served as the highest-ranking zealots of the Covenant army. That is, until Halo 2, where an Elite named the Arbiter learns the truth about the Halo rings and the Prophets and leads his race away from the Covenant, joining the humans and later killing the Prophet of Truth personally. They only appear as allies in Halo 3. * Grunts/Unggoy: The lowest and weakest of all the Covenant, these small creatures are identified by the large breathing apparatus they wear on their backs to survive in human environments, which resemble a shell. They have squeaky, high-pitched voices and their lines often provide comic relief during gameplay. They are usually deployed in as cannon fodder and even the highest Grunts fall under the leadership of the lowest Elites and Brutes. * Jackals/Kig-Yar: Skinny orange bird-like creatures with very long heads who are relatively low in the Covenant hierarchy and usually serve as "scouts" and "snipers" in military operations. They usually carry round energy shields on their arms and often are trained as snipers. In Halo: Reach, a new variation of the species called Skirmishers are introduced, which are stronger and black in color as well as more agile and dangerous. * Hunters/Mgalekgolo: Large blue mechanical monsters made up of a colony of small worm-like creatures called Lekgolo. They always fight in pairs. Hunters appear in all Halo games. The Hunters have shields and assault cannons, and are quite high in the Covenant hierarchy. * Brutes/Jiralhanae: Hairy, barbaric, ape-like humanoids with incredible physical strength and powerful weaponry. They are led by Chieftains who wield powerful melee weapons called Gravity Hammers. Brutes are introduced in Halo 2, where they serve as the main enemies of the Arbiter after he turns good, become the personal bodyguards of the Prophets during the game's storyline and replace the Elites as the main enemies in Halo 3. * Drones/Yanme'e: Relatively small flying insect creatures that rarely appear in battle and are always found in large groups when they do. Drone packs usually serve as isolated filler sequences that help break up the action during lengthier levels. Introduced in Halo 2. They willingly joined the Covenant by request, as a reward, the Drones were placed higher than the Grunts and Jackals. They were originally engineers of the Covenant, but become air units within the military when the Forerunner Engineers joined. * Engineers/Huragok: Floating slug-like creatures that were actually created by the Forerunner and now serve the Covenant as slaves. A peaceful and simple race, they do not directly participate in combat and usually just provide psychic shields for other Covenant units, but are sometimes used as suicide bombers. Engineers were created for the original Halo: Combat Evolved but were cut from the game, and later appeared in the tie-in novels before being featured in the spinoff game Halo Wars and then in the Bungie-developed Halo: ODST and Halo: Reach. Since the Prophets and high ranking individuals speak to these creatures, they are very high in the hierarchy even though they serve as slaves. * Prophets/San'Shyuum: The leaders of the Covenant religion, the Prophets are frail, old creatures who use floating chairs to move around. They are very few in number, and there are three main Prophets: The Prophet of Truth, the Prophet of Regret and the Prophet of Mercy. Ironically, all three of their personalities are actually the opposite of their names. Only one prophet is actually fought in the entire Halo series: The Prophet of Regret in Halo 2. Ranks and Positions Prophets *Hierarch: Leaders of the Covenant Empire *Councilor/Lesser: Members of the Covenant High Council *Minister: Leaders of Ministries *Vice Minister: Deputies to the full Ministers *Senior Staffer: Aides to Ministers and Vice Ministers *Junior Staffer: Aides to Senior Staffers *Cleric: Prophets who perform religious and medical operations *Vice Cleric: Subordinates to Clerics Elites *Councilor: Members of the Covenant High Council *Imperial Admiral: Leaders of the largest Covenant fleets *Supreme Commander: Leaders of Covenant armadas *Field Marshal: Leaders of Zealot strike teams *Zealot: Covenant's Generals and Admirals *Special Operations Commander: Leader of the Special Operations division *Special Operations Officer: Commanding officers in Special Operations teams *Special Operations: Extremly skilled fighters and members of Special Operations teams *Ranger: Workers and guards aboard ships with jetpacks *Stealth: Fighters of Stealth tactics *Honor Guard Ultra: Commanders of Honor Guards *Honor Guard: Protectors of the High Council and Prophets *General: Leaders of Covenant armies and warships *Ultra: Field Officers *Major: Commanders of Minors and lesser alien species *Minor: Lowest military ranked Elites and lance leaders *Kaidon: Leaders of states on Sangheilious *Oracle Master: Advisers of the High Council *Aristocrat: Elites with nobility *Commando: Elites with more communications gear and equipment *Ossoona: Similiar to Stealth Elites *Prison Guard: Guards of Prisons *Ascetics: Civilian Elites who are made to ensure stability and purity within the Covenant society *Weapons Master: Elites who improve and maintain Covenant weaponry Brutes *War Chieftain: Leaders of larger packs then Chieftains *Chieftain: Leaders of high-order packs *Captain Ultra: Highest Captain *Captain Major: More experienced Captains *Captain: Pack Leaders *Honor Guard: Protectors of the High Council and Prophets *Bodyguard: Protectors and enforcers of their Chieftains *Jump Pack Captain: Highest JP Brutes *Jump Pack Major: Higher JP Brutes *Jump Pack Minor: Brute counterparts to Ranger Elites *Stalker: Counterparts to Stealth Elites and the Covenant's secret police *Ultra: Highest Brute infantrymen *Major: Higher Brutes *Minor: Lowest military Brutes and lance leaders *Chieftain of the Brutes: Leader of the entire Brute race *Shipmaster: Commanders of Covenant ships *Army Commander: Possibly counterparts to Elite field masters Hunter No military ranking but they are golden armored Hunters seen in Halo 3: ODST. Drones *Queen: Leaders of Drone hives *Leader: Leaders of Drones *Ultra: Commanders of lesser Drones *Major: Commanders of Minors *Minor: Lowest ranked Drones Jackals *Zealot: Similiar to Elite Zealots possibly *Ranger: Similiar to Elite Rangers *Sniper: Covenant's snipers and best marksmen *Major: Commanders of Minors *Minor: Lowest ranked Jackals Grunts *Ultra: Field officers *Special Operations: Members of the Special Operations division *Heavy: Grunts who wield heavy weaponry *Major: Commanders of Minors *Minor: Lowest ranking members of the Covenant *Deacon: Representatives of the Ministry of Tranquility *Merchant: Possibly wealthy Grunts who serve in the Covenant black market *Suicidal: Suicide Bombers of the Covenant Appearances in other media The majority of events in the story arc of the Halo series occur during the "Ninth Age of Reclamation." The Covenant's organization of time and dates is not elaborated on in detail in the game or during any of the novelizations; Bungie cinematic director Joseph Staten, in an interview on Halo fansite halo.bungie.org, said that the Covenant's date system is split into seven epochs, split into the following Ages: Abandonment, Conflict, Discovery, Reconciliation, Conversion, Doubt, and Reclamation. The 2001 and 2007 novels Halo: The Fall of Reach and Halo: Contact Harvest describe humanity's first contact with the Covenant in the year 2525. In The Fall of Reach, a lone Covenant ship bombards the Harvest colony with plasma, turning the planet's crust into molten glass. The lone ship, broadcasts the Covenant edict, "Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument", and destroys several United Nations Space Command (UNSC) ships sent to attack it. Contact Harvest describes a lengthy ground engagement between human militia and Covenant before the total assault on Harvest. The Covenant claim that humans are an offense to their gods, but in reality, three Covenant Prophets have learned from a relic left by their gods, the Forerunners, that humans, who may possibly be genetically related to the Forerunners, have been chosen by the Forerunners as their Reclaimers. Realizing such a revelation would splinter the Covenant, the newly crowned Hierarchs decide to obliterate the humans instead and declare that a new Age of the Covenant has begun. The Covenant's superior technology allow them to annihilate the outer human colonies within four years; the Covenant begin to destroy the inner colonies soon thereafter. As a defensive measure, the UNSC creates the "Cole Protocol"; human ships are prohibited from directly traveling to human worlds to avoid detection by the Covenant, and destruction of a ship's navigation databases and artificial intelligence if threatened with capture. In 2552, the Covenant track the UNSC ship Iroquois to the world of Reach, Earth's most well-defended colony, by a hidden transmitter. A massive Covenant fleet arrives at Reach and lays waste to much of the planet. The Covenant's first appearance in the video games is in Halo: Combat Evolved (2001), which picks up towards the end of The Fall of Reach. A detachment of Covenant follow the human vessel Pillar of Autumn from Reach to Halo, a ring-shaped Forerunner relic that the Covenant believe sacred. Wary of accidentally damaging the ring, the Covenant are forced to fight the humans on foot, and accidentally release the Flood. The Flood, a virulent parasite that infests sentient life, attack human and Covenant alike and threaten to capture a Covenant cruiser to escape their prison on Halo. Meanwhile, the human "Spartan" supersoldier Master Chief detonates the Pillar of Autumn's engines, destroying the ring and the Covenant armada. The novelization of the game, Halo: The Flood (2003), describes additional events not seen in the game. In the novel First Strike, The Master Chief, survivors of the Autumn and surviving Spartans from Reach destroy a Covenant fleet they learn is preparing to strike Earth, and race home to warn of the impending attack. In the video game Halo 2 (2004), a member of the Covenant Prophet triumvirate, Regret, arrives at Earth with a fleet. Most of his fleet is destroyed; Regret's ship flees to another ring, Delta Halo, and is followed by the human ship In Amber Clad and the Master Chief aboard her. The Chief kills Regret before the majority of the Covenant fleet arrives at Delta Halo, along with the Covenant's holy city of High Charity. The death of Regret leads the remaining Prophets to promote the Brutes as their guards, replacing the Elites. The Elites, outraged, threaten to resign from the Covenant high council; in turn the Prophets give the Brutes carte blanche to kill the Elites, sparking a civil war. In the midst of these developments, the Flood are again released; the High Prophet Mercy is killed by the parasite, while the last remaining leader, Truth, flees to Earth in a Forerunner ship, entrusting the activation of Halo to the Brute Tartarus. The Elites ally with the humans of In Amber Clad to stop the firing of the ring, but inadvertently set all the remaining Halo rings on remote activation from a location known as the Ark, which was built as a "shield world" to protect certain species from the firing of the Halo rings, and also as a foundry to forge new rings, should one be destroyed. By the events of Halo 3 (2007), the Flood intelligence known as the Gravemind infests and captures High Charity, while the Elites assist humans on Earth in defending themselves. Truth's forces excavate a portal to the Ark, located outside the Milky Way. The Elites follow Truth, and the Covenant Arbiter, or holy warrior, kills Truth. After High Charity arrives at the Ark, the Arbiter and Master Chief decide to activate a partially built Halo ring (the replacement for the ring that the Master Chief destroyed in the first game) destroying the Flood and sparing the rest of the galaxy. The remaining humans and Elites escape back through the portal. The Human-Covenant war ends in March 2553, and the Arbiter leads his Elites back to their homeworld. The Covenant were featured in Halo 4 (2012), in the form of a rogue splinter group led by Sangheili Jul 'Mdama. This faction still follows the ideology of the old Covenant religion and seeks to find a powerful weapon on Requiem, the fictional planet on which the majority of Halo 4 is set. Known Members Elites Brutes Grunts Jackals Prophets Gallery The Covenant Empire Symbol.png|The iconic symbol of the Covenant Empire (aka The Covenant). Trivia *In a Biblical reference, the Ark of the Covenant represented the will of God, in connection with the quote: "Your destruction is the will of the Gods...and we are their instrument!" This references the Covenant's belief that they carry through the will of their Gods, the Forerunners. *343 Guilty Spark often refers to the Covenant as "meddlers" due to their constant disregard for containment protocols, and the misinterpretation of Forerunner language and technology. *The Covenant have several similarities to the Hierarchy from Universe at War. For example, the Hierarchy leader, Kamal Re'x, is eerily similar to the Prophet of Truth, saying things of comparison: (Kamal): "The universe does not abide by weakness, and we are its ambassadors" (Truth): "Your destruction is the will of the Gods...and we are their instrument.". *Members of the UNSC armed forces will often refer to the Covenant member species as a whole as "bugs" or "Covies". This can be heard in the quotes "Covie scum." and "The only good bug is a dead bug." **The latter quote is taken from Starship Troopers and Aliens. *Early concepts of the Sangheli resemble the Xenomorphs from the'' Alien'' film series, as with many other things such as Pelicans and Sgt. Avery Johnson. 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